You know how dogs seem to love eating grass. Well, they also love eating fermented grass. This evening the dogs decided that the grass clipping pile had just reached the right fermentation and the dirty beggars have dug into the pile (as they have done before) to get to the grass that is at just the right fermented level for them, which also happens to have the stench of cow shit. So they stink. I've seen dogs happily eat Silage on farms and tomorrow I won't have dogs rough scatting the place, it actually causes the opposite effect in dogs and I will find lovely firm very dark green stools. It don't seem to do them any harm, other than them being rather fragrant smelling. The photos are of some of the pack with tell tale fermented grass stained faces, unashamed of their fermented grass eating habit.

The photos are of Henry showing total submission. He knows he is somewhere that he is rarely allowed to be and not sure he should be there. The inner sanctum of our home the bedroom, or to Henry where the leaders of the pack sleep on an amazingly big luxury dog bed. I had just been putting some laundry away and had seen Henry sitting patiently at the threshold of the hallway (as someone had left the door open), awaiting my return. So I gestured for him to come forward and we stole a moment of rest together. Thomas caught the moment, as he was just passing with his camera to go outside and take some photos.

After three sharp morning frosts the end of April our Runner Beans have managed to survive. I thought I had lost most of them, but they look like the most of them are going to make it. Growing sweetcorn in our garden for the first time, so will be interested in how that does. Our Pumpkins did not far so well with the unseasonably cold start to May, but six plants are still going, which should be enough for each child to have a pumpkin at Halloween. We have carrots and parsnips yet to plant out. We are slowly trying to grow a bit more each year. Great for children to understand not only how stuff grows, but the work that goes in to growing stuff to eat.

Big Breakfast

We had a Big Breakfast for lunch. Chipping up and sauteing the Jersey Royal potatoes over from the salad the day before.

Big Walk

Then we went to Chittlehamholt woods with the children and four of the dogs sisters Blottie and Bumble, their Mum Smudge and their Grandmother Millie. Smudge and Blottie were kept on long lines, as together off lead they cannot be trusted to come back. The first bit of the video is of our son Alfie and me arriving at the stream before everyone else, as we had run with the dogs from where we had parked up at Chittlehamholt, around about a mile away.

Big Dessert

Then back home for dessert, which was a White Chocolate and raspberry cheesecake I had made earlier.

Seven years ago Devon rugby club Exeter Chiefs finally got their foot in the door of the English Premiership and most thought they would struggle to keep their foot there, but seven years later they have more than kept their foot in the door Exeter Chiefs: Premiership title win ends long journey to success​Being Devonian and with one of my brother-in-laws nephew Ben Moon ​being part of the Exeter Chiefs squad since 2008, there is a little bit of interest in the club, and because we only have BBC and free-view on our telly, we only got to watch the highlights of the final late last night. It was well worth waiting up to watch. As expected a real hard game. Well done Chiefs!

Exeter won their first English title seven years after winning promotion to the top flight

It's been very warm here and eating salad weather. with boom, boom, bang arriving around 2.30am Saturday morning, when my husband David and I were awoken and watched Mother nature gives us a light display over the Taw Valley that would put any pyrotechnic display to shame. Amazingly the children slept through the thunder and lightening. The dogs barked once with the first crack, but then settled down.

Quiche filled with caramelized onions, cheddar, streaky bacon, fresh parsley with a sprinkle of Parmesan on top before going in the oven.

A rather agricultural looking Treacle tart for dessert Sunday evening, which tasted very nice still warm from the oven with a dollop of vanilla ice cream.

"In a Fall 2016 newsletter column, USA veterinary cardiologist Dr. Philip Fox (right) asserts that in determining when to start administering pimobendan to MVD-affected dogs under the EPIC Study, either x-rays orechocardiography may be used. Specifically, he writes:"In light of these findings, clinicians should change how they diagnose and manage MVD. Dogs with heart murmurs should be screened early, rather than wait for clinical signs of coughing or respiratory distress to develop. Assessment can be effectively made using history and physical examination along with the added benefit of chest radiography and/or echocardiography." (Emphasis added.)"

"Essentially, the risk of developing Chronic Heart Failure (CHF) or dying was almost halved, regardless of how bad the dog’s disease was going into the study. On the face of it, this sounds great. Based on this information alone, every dog with MMVD and left atrial enlargement (correctly identified!) would benefit from pimobendan treatment. Not so fast! The decision to treat a dog requires additional information to be considered. First, the baseline risk of developing CHF needs to be determined, i.e., what is the chance that this dog will actually develop CHF at some point in the future?" (Emphasis added.)

"He then takes into account the statistics from the study and asks this ultimate question:"

"Is 'earlier' treatment better than 'later' treatment? The survival curves provide clues to this answer. ... Now, if there was a clear benefit of 'earlier' rather than 'later,' we might expect the survival curves to diverge, ie., continue to move further and further apart. But they don’t. For the majority of the study, they remain parallel. So, the benefit with more severely affected dogs is about 300 days, and the benefit with the least severely affected dogs is about 300 days. This suggests that taking the more measured approach of waiting until a dog exhibits evidence of disease progression before instituting therapy is not compromising that dog nor reducing the benefit of the drug. And, dogs that were never going to progress to more severe disease and never develop CHF would not be subjected to needless drug administration (and needless expenses)." (Emphasis added.)

A significant number of Cavaliers that are diagnosed with a murmur do not progress to CHF and with suggesting as Cardiologist Phillip Fox does, that just an x-ray can be used for determining when to prescribe pimobendan with heart enlargement in all dogs, regardless of breed, using a VHS value of 10.5+, is a measurement so low that most Cavaliers that don't have MVD could be considered a candidate for being prescribed pimobendan. I think the more measured approach of Cardiologist Mark Rishniw of the dog exhibiting evidence of disease progression, which "is not compromising that dog nor reducing the benefit of the drugs" is certainly a better option than dogs being "subjected to needless drug administration (and needless expense)."

"The hunter-gatherers of Zhokhov Island were a hardy folk. Nine thousand years ago, they survived frigid year-round temperatures in animal-skin tents some 500 kilometers north of what is now the Russian mainland, and they were the only people ever known to hunt large numbers of polar bears without firearms. Now it appears these ancient Arctic dwellers did something even more remarkable: They may have been among the first humans to breed dogs for a particular purpose. An analysis of canine bones from Zhokhov suggests the dogs there were bred to pull sleds, making this the first evidence—by thousands of years—for dog breeding in the archaeological record."

educating the public regarding the consequences of breeding animals based on looks rather than health,

promoting responsible puppy-buying practices for all breeds of dog."

The "Dogs Trust urges anyone thinking of getting a puppy to look beyond the appearance of a breed, understand the impact on health, research the seller and buy responsibly.” Personally, I think the only way forward to stop the suffering of dogs being bred with Brachycephalywill be legislation against breeding dogs to suffer. Qualzucht or “torture breeding” should be a crime.

Salads

and

Ice creams

Is it some sort of season for Search engine optimization? I've had umpteen emails the last couple days, telling me how shit my website is, and how I'm not visible on social media. I find it a tad ironic to be told that I'm so hard to find, by so many SEO companies.

“The greatest pleasure of a dog is that you may make a fool of yourself with him, and not only will he not scold you,but he will make a fool of himself, too.” ― Samuel Butler

Me with Bumble and Blottie, waiting patiently to be unleashed, November 2018

Author

Hello, I am Jane, you might of guessed, I love dogs. We are situated in the North Devon countryside, England, United Kingdom. Our home is occupied by my husband, David, our children, pack of dogs and me.On this page you can find out what we are getting up to and the day to day issues our dogs encounter. I also post stories about my work as a relief milker of cows and life in general.You can also find regular updates here on how our pups are getting on in their new homes.To contact me my number is 01769 560969 and email is howarthmurch@btinternet.com